New studies: Drinking coffee helps you live longer and WHAT ☕️

If a cup of coffee is your parenting companion there’s good news—not only will that mug help you last until naptime, it’s possible coffee helps you live longer, too.

Two new studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine hit the web this week, linking greater coffee consumption to longevity. The first—reportedly the largest study to date on coffee and lifespan—surveyed more than half a million Europeans and found coffee could be a factor in lowering certain mortality factors.

The second study examined coffee drinkers from several ethnic groups and concluded “higher consumption of coffee was associated with lower risk for death in African Americans, Japanese Americans, Latinos and whites.”

The researchers certainly aren’t suggesting people who don’t drink coffee suddenly pick up the habit—as a co-author of the European study notes, it’s possible that coffee drinkers are just healthier than our non-caffeinated counterparts—but those of us who already indulge can stop feeling guilty about our addiction.

As CNN reports, these two newly released studies seem to back up previous research on our favorite caffeinated drink—and highlight inverse relationships between coffee drinking and health issues, such as heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, suicide in men, cancer in women, digestive diseases, circulatory diseases and more.

And while many of us feel guilty for going back to the coffee machine (or through the Starbucks drive-through) more than once a day, the research suggests multiple cups are not a bad thing. The study of European coffee drinkers found folks who drink three or more cups per day have a lower risk of death than those who don’t drink coffee.

More good news: It seems that they way the coffee is made doesn’t have much of an impact on the health benefits. The European study looked at coffee consumption in 10 nations and the way coffee is prepared and consumed is different in each of them.

Basically, whether you’re enjoying a leisurely pour from your French press or chugging from a paper cup while on the way to your kiddo’s soccer game, the health benefits are the same.

Research into coffee’s health benefits will continue, and in the meantime, we should all go find the mug we let grow cold when distracted by mom duties. It could be the key to living to see our great-grandchildren. ☕️